


it's a pretty good song (you know the rest)

by voodoochild



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Animal Death, Awkward Crush, Awkward Flirting, Bilingual Character(s), Bisexual Male Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Euthanasia, Falling In Love, Gay Male Character, Hipsters, Idiots in Love, Indy Wrestling, M/M, Mild Blood, Multilingual Character, Pining, Slow Burn, Veterinary Clinic, falling in love over various asian noodles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2019-07-06 13:03:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15886605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: Kevin's morning is ruined: the hot guy is behind the counter again. He's tried coming in every different time of day he can think of. No dice. Still the same stupidly beautiful redheaded barista looking up to smile at him like a fucking angel in too-clingy band tees and skinny jeans. Doesn't the guy ever sleep? And if he does, could he please invite Kevin to wherever it is? [Coffeeshop AU, slowest of slow burns due to the pining.]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, months ago, I was on a deep Tumblr dive looking for fic prompts, and this one immediately caught my eye as PERFECT for Kevin and Sami: _"you give me a different fake name every time you come into starbucks and I just want to know your real name because you're cute but here I am scrawling “batman” onto your stupid cappuccino"._ Much love to Chloe, who enables all my weird AU's, and is the best sounding board ever.
> 
> Title from the Gaslight Anthem's "High Lonesome".
> 
> Main pairing is Kevin/Sami, any others listed are minor.

Kevin's morning is ruined: the hot guy is behind the counter *again*.

He's tried coming in every different time of day he can think of: around 7 in the morning when he's on his way into the office, during his lunch break at 1, late-night writing sessions (video games do not develop themselves), mid-morning on the weekends at prime brunch time. No dice. Still the same stupidly beautiful redheaded barista looking up to smile at him like a fucking angel in too-clingy band tees and skinny jeans.

(Doesn't the guy ever sleep? And if he does, could he please invite Kevin to wherever it is?)

This morning, he's been called in early to assist on an endoscopy, which means he's got to be alert. Skipping coffee would be detrimental to his career - yeah, being a vet tech occasionally sucks, and it's not like he's working for a zoo or anything, but he does love his job - and the only half-decent coffee shop around is Chotto Busaiku. God, why couldn't the hippie vegan owner be in? Daniel not only remembers Kevin's usual order, he's significantly less-distracting than the hot barista and doesn't listen to shitty pop-punk.

The line moves quick, and Kevin gets to the front, ordering his usual double shot mocha latte. Bayley's on the register, and her nose wrinkles as she sees him and smiles.

"Hey you! Who am I writing today?"

It started as an inside joke between them: Bayley had been in training, and had forgotten to ask Kevin's name for the cup. He'd paid in cash so she couldn't check his credit card, and she'd been panicking, because while Daniel was a cool boss, apparently he was a stickler for the rules. Kevin had been wearing a Beauty and the Beast shirt (what? he likes Disney, and the Beast is awesome), so she'd written "Adam" on the cup, making sure Kevin saw it. He changes it every time.

"Wilson."

She laughs, scribbling it on a medium cup. "Cast Away?"

"House, dude." 

"Then why not House himself? You're grouchy and sarcastic."

He shrugs. "Don't we all wanna be the Wilson, though?"

There are people behind him, so he moves down the counter. Hot barista dude doesn't look up as he makes first a triple-shot no-foam cappuccino with butterscotch for a blonde in gold sneakers (doesn't have to look at the cup to call her "Carm" and flash her a smile), then Kevin's coffee. Flicks a casual glance over the espresso machine at Kevin - who is pretending to look at some very important X-rays on his phone and not staring at the barista, nope - and pours both shots in before pressing the lid on.

"Mocha doubleshot latte for Wilson?" Kevin goes to collect it, but hot barista dude holds it back. "No way is your name Wilson."

Kevin stonewalls him. "Yes, it is. What the shit, give me my coffee."

"Your name was Panda on Saturday."

"That's my nickname."

"You told me it was Jon fucking Snow last week."

"I know I'm supposed to know nothing, but should you be cursing in front of customers?"

Hot barista dude rolls his eyes and holds out the coffee. Kevin goes to take it, but the guy keeps his unfairly long and pretty fingers wrapped around the cup. Smirks at Kevin and taps his nametag (which is a new thing, they've never had them before this week).

"I'm Sami. Now will you tell me your actual name?"

Oh god, hot barista dude (Sami, his name is Sami, he even spells it weird) is touching his hand, and Kevin panics. Pulls the cup toward him, sloshing hot coffee on his hand, and fleeing out the door. Gets into his car, cursing and licking scalding-hot chocolate flavored espresso off his hand, and he does not look in his rearview mirror to check if anyone's staring at him. They probably are. Sami probably thinks he's a complete headcase and klutz.

He thunks his forehead onto the steering wheel. It doesn't help.

***

Work is fairly normal, for an overbooked Tuesday morning. Dr. Corino let him do a lot of the work on the endoscopy, and Alfie (male tabby, potential obstruction in airway) had come out of anesthesia well. Kevin likes Alfie, he's always been a sweet cat, and luckily, the problem had just been a larger-than-usual hairball. 

He's carrying Alfie along on the last of his rounds - checking in on that Dalmatian belonging to the purple-haired girl who works at the thrift store on Third, recording the blood pressure of a still-sedated mastiff with a sprained tendon - when he spots Jimmy leaning over the reception desk, trying to charm Nattie. She's not usually the receptionist, considering she has almost as much tech experience as Kevin, but Johnny and Candice are on vacation, and they're incredibly short-staffed. 

"Oh no, buddy, let's go rescue Nattie from your dad," Kevin says to Alfie, whose ears perk up. He stays on Kevin's shoulder, though, not even pulling against the leash and dumb pink studded collar. Jimmy's taste for fashion extends to cat accessories. "Maybe he won't paint your nails again if he's just happy you're not dying."

That had been fun. Alfie had developed vomiting after licking at the polish, and it's been a continuous five months of trying to convince Jimmy to stop treating his cat like a child. Kevin loves the stupid idiot despite his cat-craziness, because Jimmy had given him a place to crash when he first moved to Orlando from Montreal, and Jimmy is also one of the most ride-or-die friends Kevin's ever had.

"Kev! How's my boy?"

"Well, I'm good-" Kevin says, mostly for Jimmy's annoyed huff. "Here, Alfie is fine. Airway obstruction was a hairball - ironically, you need to groom him a little more, he's lazy and won't do it himself. Take your cat and stop harassing Dr. Neidhart."

Jimmy picks up Alfie and cuddles him like a baby, ignoring the white cat hair all over his silk shirt. His gold-and-green nails skritch under Alfie's chin. "I'm so glad you're okay. Much love, Kev and Doctor Hot Stuff. Bill in the mail is okay?"

Kevin has absolutely no idea what Jimmy does for a living, even after being roommates for six months before Kevin found his own apartment. It involves makeup and traditionally feminine clothing, but it's not drag. It involves working out and kickboxing, but it's not MMA. He's not a fashion designer, his drawing ability is roughly equivalent to a toddler's. Possibly he's a spy? All Kevin is sure about is that Jimmy is never hurting for money, and if he says to send him a bill, it'll be paid immediately upon receipt. 

“Yeah, we’ll send the usual,” Kevin responds, letting Nattie retreat to the back and taking her spot at the reception desk. “Can I get your signature on the billing form?”

Jimmy rests both Alfie and his cell phone on the desk - Kevin will never understand how well-trained that cat is, he doesn’t even investigate the unfamiliar space, just looks around and sits placidly at Kevin’s elbow - and takes the clipboard from Kevin, starting to fill it out. Drumming his fingers on the desk, Kevin notices Jimmy’s phone start to buzz. The photo that fills the screen is of a guy in swim trunks with palm trees on them upside-down on a couch, kissing a smiling Jimmy’s cheek, and Kevin almost chokes as he recognizes Sami the hot barista.

Damn, he looks better shirtless than Kevin imagined. 

Not that Kevin has imagined him shirtless. A lot.

“Oh, uh - hey, you’ve got a call.”

Jimmy glances down at the phone. “Oh! Hey, can you hold this a sec?” He hands Alfie’s leash to Kevin, and swipes to answer the call. “Babe! I thought you were working until 10?”

Jimmy has a different person - male, female, nonbinary, he's not judgmental and neither is Kevin - every week. He only occasionally brings them home, so while Kevin is surprised Jimmy and Sami know each other, he isn't surprised they hadn't met when Kevin was living with Jimmy. Kevin is also not eavesdropping on Jimmy and his probably-boyfriend Sami, except he totally is. 

“Oh, awesome . . . not awesome?. . . ugh, seriously? Okay, me and Alfie are picking you up and you’re coming over to watch Bob’s Burgers and eat leftover Thai. Don’t fucking leave.” He hangs up and turns to Kevin. “Buddy emergency, you know how it goes. Anything else for that form?”

Generally one doesn’t call their boyfriend a “buddy”, right? Except why is he shirtless and gorgeous on Jimmy’s phone? Fuckbuddies? Friends-with-benefits that Kevin cannot be thinking about right now? Kevin realizes he's being kind of pathetic and so he shoves the clipboard back at Jimmy.

“Your social security number should be longer than seven digits, then I need you to initial the bottom left and sign.”

Jimmy signs with a flourish, then scoops up Alfie, making kissyfaces at him. “C’mon, Alf, let’s go pick up Sami.”

Kevin tries not to glare at Jimmy as he leaves.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin encounters the annoying hot barista again, and then has an enlightening brunch with some friends.

He doesn't get back to Busaiku until Friday night. It's the first chance he's had to write all week - he could write in his apartment, of course, but that route leads to finishing an entire pint of Americone Dream and mainlining The Office again. Busaiku has no ice cream to tempt him.

The weird barista’s on the register tonight. Kevin knows his name starts with an N, something stupidly British, but he wears the most eye-wateringly awful socks with sandals, so he's the weird barista. He keys in Kevin's order and Kevin absently gives him the first name that springs to mind. Goes around the corner to stake out his usual table - corner, two outlets nearby, window view, slightly hidden from the rest of the shop by an overgrown plant.

He drops his bag, plugs in his laptop (a seven year old Toshiba he babies to hell because it's *perfect*), and waves to Renee in the far booth. They're not friends, but she's a fellow Canadian expat and a journalist with actual morals. It helps that she has one of the cutest bulldogs known to man. She's not terrible company, for the 2 hours they spend writing in the same coffee shop and occasionally trading small talk before she leaves to meet her boyfriend. 

“Oh hey, Kevin,” she says, sipping at a caramel macchiato, which is a good choice since the house-made caramel syrup is one of the best things ever. “Thanks for the tip about the shampoo. My boy’s looking so much better since I switched brands.”

Renee had brought Blue in last week freaking out about fleas, but it had actually been an allergy to the grooming shampoo. He thinks she’s mostly happy he didn’t charge her for the consult, but he can’t really justify billing her for a two-minute evaluation.

“Blue or Dean?” he asks, just to be mean. “Cause that guy could use a good volumizer-”

“I’m not taking human hair care tips from you. It took Jimmy an entire three months to get you to use something decent on your stupid faux-hawk.”

“Large iced coffee with hazelnut for Michael Scott?”

He can’t answer Renee because oh, fuck, it's Sami and he's wearing one of his stupid snapbacks. Kevin hadn’t expected him tonight, Sami usually never works Friday nights, so he’d thought it was safe to come in wearing an old G&R tee and workout shorts. Crap.

“Mine.” Kevin wants his coffee, so he has to man up and approach the counter. Sami gives him a raised eyebrow, and while he’s no Rock, it’s cute as hell when he’s irritated.

“You drink doubleshot lattes, _Michael_. What are you doing ordering iced coffee?”

“It's late, it's hot out, and I like it,” Kevin says, amused. “Why do you care?”

“Scientists say that caffeine stays in the bloodstream for six hours. Plus it messes up your circadian rhythm and doctors tell you-”

“Well, my medical degree and I don't have to get up tomorrow and do have to finish some work, so I think I'll be fine.”

Sami narrows his eyes, but hands over the coffee. “Order a white mocha next time.”

He doesn't offer any further explanation, moving on to the next drink, so Kevin grabs a straw and goes back to his table. Which is not very far away, and he can hear the conversation Sami’s having with the next guy in line.

“Hey Finn, let me get you a carrier. Late night, huh?”

“Jesus, yeah. Authority just put out a new system patch, didn't bother beta-testing the fecking thing, so no one's going home until we rebuild every client server to run it.”

The guy's accent and namedropping Authority rings a bell - Kevin thinks he might be one of the consultants working with Shield. Seth keeps mentioning the Irish guy he has it bad for, so Kevin sneaks a look under cover of fiddling with his laptop plug. Wow. Kevin can see why - great body, gorgeous smile, baby blues, expensive suit. Of course, Sami is standing right there in really unfairly tight faded jeans, and his ass is miles better than Finn's. 

“That sucks, man. I totally get it if you want to bail on biking tomorrow.”

“I’ll text you. Can you double-check that red eye? Seth wanted the Ajuvo.”

“Xavier! Ajuvo in the red eye?”

Xavier yells back from where he’s shoulders-deep in cleaning out a grinder. “Yes! Opened a new bag just for Seth.”

“Thanks, man. And thank you, lady,” Sami says, accepting two paper bags from Bayley. “Okay, you’ve got the red-eye on top, two iced Americanos, a large caramel latte, a drip coffee with vanilla, two tofurky pesto paninis, one Swiss chard and pepper panini, one avocado veggie BLT, a half dozen croissants, and one guava pastelito. That it?”

“I have never loved someone so much,” Finn says fervently, leaning over the counter and kissing Sami’s cheek before he turns and goes out the door with his food and coffee.

Kevin resolutely does not slam his foot into the nearest chair, but he does press his enter key a little too testily. Renee leans back in her chair, looking annoyingly smug.

“Don’t be jealous of Finn,” she says.

“Why, is he straight?”

“No, but he’s also in a really complicated set of relationships with two girls and a guy that’s not Sami. That’s some crush you’ve got there, Kev.”

“Shut up,” he says, but there’s no actual anger in it, and Renee knows that. Also, her boyfriend does krav maga and could probably kick his ass.

He refuses to look anywhere in Sami’s direction for the rest of the night.

***

Kevin comes back Sunday morning before brunch with Claudio and Sara and orders the white mocha.

It's annoyingly delicious.

***

“Why does your coffee say ‘Sherlock fucking Holmes’ on it?”

Kevin hands Sara her iced Americano and holds the tiny cortado cup out to Claudio. “Because this one guy at Busaiku thinks he’s cute.”

“Oh, Sami,” Claudio says, knowingly.

“Wait,” Kevin says, “you mean he does his pushy I-know-better-than-you thing to other people, too?”

Sara and Claudio exchange a look. It’s one of their weird couple-y mindreading looks, and Kevin dislikes them, because they’re usually deployed before a lecture on how he can Be a Better Person. This is the hazard of being friends with two hypercompetent people who work in IT and academia and do shit like Crossfit for fun.

“Why do you think I switched from espresso to cortados?” Claudio accepts a menu from their server even though they’ve had a go-to brunch order at Briarpatch for over a year now. “Espresso was good, but it was always too bitter for me.”

“And Sami showed you the light?”

“Cortados have milk, apparently. All of the caffeine, none of the bitterness.”

“And what has Sami converted you to drinking?” he asks Sara.

She laughs. “Nothing. I’m attached to my Americanos, but he got me into this band called the Misfits. You’d hate them.”

“Probably.”

“His taste in music is pretty good.”

“But it’s not like either of you asked for his recommendation,” Kevin says, pausing to order his food. “It was just ‘oh, drink this instead’ or ‘oh, listen to this band’.”

“What did he tell you to order?” Claudio asks.

“A white mocha.”

Sara picks up his coffee and swirls it, demonstrating how little there is left. “Clearly you hated it.”

“No, it’s awesome, but that’s not the point! I liked my iced hazelnut.”

“You recommend stuff to us all the time,” Sara says. “You told us about that ice cream place last week. Why do you care that Sami figured out another type of coffee you like?”

“I don’t know, but I bet you’re going to tell me,” Kevin snarks.

Sara reaches for the plate of pecan sticky buns the waiter has delivered. She gets first dibs, always - she’s actually stabbed someone’s fingers for taking one before her - and passes it to Kevin to make sure he gets one. Claudio will eat anything that’s not spoken for. 

“Do you want to tell him, babe, or should I?” she says.

“Your privilege entirely, _dolcezza_ ,” Claudio says. Kevin finds their pet names slightly revolting, which is why Claudio does it.

“You care,” Sara says, jabbing her fork at him, “because Sami could not be any more your type if he were an actual puppy.”

“What the fuck, Sara? I don’t - that’s stupid, his face is stupid, why would I-?”

“You date rays of human sunshine.” No he doesn’t, that’s just dumb. He dates normal people, not pushy weirdos like Sami, and as he starts to tell Sara so, she shakes her head. “Eddie’s smile was bigger than most toothpaste commercials and he used to volunteer at a food bank. Your tiny Canadian ex let us crash in his guestroom for three days and made us dinner-”

“Twiggy’s just nice. I’d let him do the same, crash at my apartment if he were going to Disney or something, but he doesn’t like dogs.”

“Milo’s a mini-dachshund, he barely counts,” Claudio says through a mouthful of sticky bun.

Kevin rolls his eyes. “When I get a backyard and salary like you two have, I’ll get an 80-pound Rottweiler, too. Until then, it’s me and Milo and Dwight in my one-bedroom condo.”

He’s saved from further dissection of his apartment and love life by the arrival of his one true love - the blueberry and lemon curd stuffed pancakes from Briarpatch. Kevin distracts Claudio by stealing a piece of potato off his omelette, because otherwise Claudio steals all the whipped cream off Kevin’s pancakes. Honestly, he has no idea why he puts up with Claudio, between the food-thievery and his unfortunate Crossfit addiction, but when Nattie introduced him to their new system admin (Bar Cybersecurity, Shield’s maintenance team), they’d spent two hours talking about The Office. He’d accepted a lunch invite, where he met Sara - who could bench-press him while she was psychoanalyzing him, god, she’s terrifying - and they’ve been friends ever since. 

“Oh, speaking of Sami, babe, didn’t you tell me that he and Matt just broke up?” Sara asks innocently, taking a bite of sunny-side-up eggs.

“They did,” Claudio answers, smirking. Kevin wants to fling whipped cream at his face. “Pretty publicly too. Matt drove up with a box of Sami’s stuff and left it in the doorway of Busaiku, yelling the whole time. Dick move, if you ask me.”

Kevin swallows a bite of pancake before he asks “how do you even know about this?”

“I was at the shop, working on their server. Everybody saw it.”

“Ouch,” Sara comments.

“Sami looked awful. He picked up the box, called someone, and left 20 minutes later.”

“Sucks to be him,” Kevin says, and shrugs at the twin looks of disbelief he gets. “What? I’m sorry he broke up with his boyfriend, but I’ve done that, and I’m not an overbearing jerk.”

Sara’s head falls into her hands as Claudio sighs.

“Not the point of that story, Kev.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dolcezza = (Italian) sweetheart
> 
> Kevin's ex Twiggy is [this adorable nerdchild](https://mith-gifs-wrestling.tumblr.com/post/177930830711/the-conclusion-of-kevins-shoot-interview-is), who thinks Kevin is burly and has beautiful eyes (which is accurate). I originally had a different name, but Mith's gifset was very fortuitously-timed.
> 
> Sami's ex Matt is [Matt Cross](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DSKcguCX4AE4DpY.jpg) (aka M-Dogg, aka Son of Havoc), and not a terrible dude. Breakups suck, yo.
> 
> Kevin's pets are [Milo](https://s15.postimg.cc/aqx9y5znf/kevinandhisdaschundpuppyohmygod.jpg) (mini-daschund), and [Dwight](https://78.media.tumblr.com/41af0ae7df4999ad8fc573557c5937c6/tumblr_pek2j0rY2J1u0d53m_500.png) (longhaired Persian). I do not know what his dog is named, but as you can see, Dwight is his actual cat.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin has meddling coworkers and meddling parents, but is still not dating Sami. He's not even thinking about it. (He might be thinking about it a little bit.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know nothing about veterinary practices, but [Dr. Ferox does](https://drferox.tumblr.com/). Go check out her blog for any animal-related info you may need. Anything set in Dr's Corino, Owens, and Neidhart's office is probably influenced by her blog.

He makes his usual Monday morning coffee run, and as soon as he sets foot in the door, he can tell something’s wrong. Xavier’s handling one of the lines plus the phone, the weird British guy is on the other register, Bayley and a girl with chopsticks in her hair are on the espresso machines, and even Brie is wrapping up pastries and running orders out to tables. Brie almost never has to work in the shop - she creates all the pastries and handles all the marketing for Busaiku.

Kevin gets to the front of the line and orders his usual, tells Xavier it’s for “Peter Griffin”, and Xavier doesn’t even bat an eye. He almost calls Xavier on it, but everyone’s running around and he doesn’t want to annoy the guy who is usually really cool to him. Xavier goes to hand Kevin his change, then answers the phone.

“Sami, what the hell, man? You never fucking no-show, what’s up?”

He can’t hear any more of the conversation because Xavier turns his back, and Kevin really has no reason to lurk at the register. He picks up his coffee from chopstick girl and her weird accent, and leaves to drive to the office.

The first hour is normal. Three dog checkups, a spaying, and two feline blood workups (one clean, one rush job due to a bacterial ear infection), and since Johnny and Candice are back from Antigua, they've caught up on paperwork and are mostly hanging out with the healthy animals while they wait for test results. Johnny’s throwing the chew toy for Riggs the pitbull while Andre lazes by Kevin’s feet (Stephanie’s slated to pick him up tomorrow morning, apparently the girls are going nuts without him), and Candice and Nattie are fussing over one of the cats curled up on the filing cabinet.

Which is when Sami walks in. And Kevin is the only one at the desk.

“It’s you,” Sami says.

“Uh, hey, can I help you?” he manages to get out.

Sami blinks in surprise. “Yeah, I just, I didn’t know you were a vet. When you said ‘medical degree’ I assumed - not vet? Not that you can’t be a vet, but I’ve never seen you in scrubs and so I kind of thought you were-”

“Can I _help_ you?”

Oh god, his voice is coming out weird and confrontational and this is not ideal. But it makes Sami startle and point past Kevin.

“Dr. Neidhart has my cat. Who I’m here to pick up. Um, is she okay? I know I might have overreacted about the ear thing, but Gucci really never scratches at herself like that, not ever. Even when she was a kitten.”

Wait, Gucci is Sami’s cat? Gucci doesn’t belong to Adrian with the ears and the glasses and hair? 

“I was freaking out because she didn’t eat much last night, only a few mouthfuls of wet food, and she always loves wet food. So when she didn’t eat and started yowling and scratching this morning, I brought her here. Was that okay? I’m sure you guys have much more…”

Sami’s still talking, and Kevin finds it adorable, but shouldn’t Sami breathe or something?

“Hey,” he says, a little forcefully, but it makes Sami stop and take a breath. “She’s fine. The scratching is a bacterial infection. Completely normal in an older cat who has been exposed to a kitten with ear mites. Were you planning to keep the kitten?”

“I mean, Adrian doesn't really want another cat, but it's my apartment and I can't just leave her outside-”

“Okay, so either you or your boyfriend-"

“What? No!” Sami sputters, waving his hands back and forth. “Adrian’s my roommate, we've lived together since we were twenty.”

Oh. That's good. Kevin should probably stop assuming Sami’s dating every hot guy or girl in Orlando, but it's really difficult when he's gorgeous and kind of overaffectionate. Yes, he’s just broken up with one person, but maybe he’s the kind of guy who hooks up quick - Kevin has no way of really knowing.

“Well, bring the little one in by next week if you do, she’ll need an antifungal. Keep her away from Gucci until the antibiotics work their course. Nattie’s going to give you a prescription - three times a day, two week dose.”

“Okay. I can do that. Or Adrian can. He’s pretty much on call with gym clients whenever, so he can reschedule to do stuff. Wait, if the kitten has mites, can she pass them on to humans? Because I have this weird rash on the back of my arm-”

Sami starts rolling up his sleeve and while the muscle tone is really nice - he lives with a personal trainer, of course he works out, Kevin, you dummy - Kevin swats at his arm.

“Put it away, man. It’s just a rash. The likelihood of you - or anybody - catching mites from a cat is ridiculous.”

Oh. He’s still touching Sami’s arm. Should he be doing that? He’s sort of at work, but it’s only Sami’s forearm, and he should probably let go. Which he does, and turns around to retrieve Gucci, who is thankfully uninterested in Kevin and her human. Gucci chirps a little grumpily when Kevin picks her up, but doesn’t scratch, which makes Sami’s jaw drop.

“Wait, she isn’t scratching you?”

It’s a valid question, she’d gotten Candice pretty good last time. Kevin shrugs. “We’ve got an understanding, apparently. I think she just likes dudes - Johnny had her with no problem earlier. Ow, claws off the coat.”

Sami takes Gucci from him, picking her claws out of Kevin’s lab coat, and places the cat in a carrier. He pats the lid awkwardly. “Well, um, thank you. I’ll take her home now.”

“Prescription?” Kevin reminds him, pointing to Nattie at the other end of the desk, who is not-so-surreptitiously filming them for her Instagram.

“Oh. Yeah.” Sami shuffles his feet for a second, then looks back over. “Listen, will you tell me your name _now_? You’re not just a customer anymore, you're my vet, and it’s stupid to call you Victor Von Doom or Lestat or Bruce Wayne like I’ve never heard of comic books or awful vampire novels or freaking Batman before.”

“His name is Kevin, here’s your prescription, call back anytime tomorrow to make an appointment for the kitten’s ear mite treatment. You’re welcome!”

He’s going to strangle Nattie. Slowly and painfully, but only after Sami leaves, because he’s beaming at Kevin and it’s honestly like the sun has come out. Nattie spins in her chair, smug smile on her face, and Sami holds out his hand again. This time, Kevin shakes it, and oh crap, Sami’s going to need to tone down that smile because it’s too adorable and it’s making Kevin want to smile back. Which is stupid, because his smile is stupid.

Dammit, he’s totally smiling like a teenaged girl with a crush, and thankfully Sami just lets go of his hand, waves, and goes off with his cat to do gorgeous redheaded things.

“Are you finally going to ask him out?” Nattie asks.

“No,” Kevin says, throwing a squeaky toy at her. “And delete whatever dumb video you took.”

“I’m just asking because you’re both adorable. You could have the most Canadian wedding, all fall colors with a maple leaf theme, photos of Mont Royal-”

“Okay, just because I'm from Montreal-”

“So is Sami.”

Wait, _what_?

He might have said that out loud because Nattie laughs and throws the toy back, bouncing it off his chest. “Yeah, he told me so at Gucci’s last checkup. I think you were assisting with that abdominal ultrasound on the greyhound - ugh, his owners were awful - but anyway, Sami’s from Montreal. Well, Laval, but that’s close enough, right? See? Canadian wedding.”

Not going to happen. He is not going to start thinking about walking through Vieux-Montreal with Sami, down by the harbor. He is not imagining taking Sami up Mont Royal with the wind in their faces. He is definitely not visualizing what Sami might look like at a Habs game with him, wearing an oversized jersey and jumping up and down for a goal.

Crap.

***

Maybe it’s homesickness. 

He spends all day at work on Tuesday annoying Nattie and Candice by answering every question in French. He downloads a couple Quebecois podcasts and listens to them over lunch. He actually drives all the way up to Firefly for poutine after work. Maybe that was a sign, because his phone rings approximately two minutes after he walks in his front door after taking Milo for a quick walk. 

It’s his parents, flurry of Franglish because his mom doesn’t like using English and his dad loves practicing. Kevin feels slightly guilty because it’s been over a week and a half since he talked to them, even longer since he called or texted Eric. Not that they’re counting.

“Eleven days, _mon beau_ , you worry me,” Mom says, the FaceTime window going fuzzy as she adjusts her phone. “There was a report on the news-”

“There’s always a report,” Kevin says, used to her paranoia. She thinks every murder in the US is a direct threat to him, as if Canada has no crime. “I don’t even know where Gadsden County is.”

His mother proceeds to sketch out precisely how close it is - four hours, near Tallahassee, he’s never even _been_ to Tallahassee - and he does what he always does, which is reassure her he’s being careful when he drives or walks Milo and distract her by asking for gossip about the neighbors.

“Simone Bonheur from your history class was in the _depanneur_ yesterday, she’s a nurse now. Such a beautiful girl, Kevin, you remember her.”

He really doesn’t. He probably went to high school with her, but if she was in any of his history classes, he was probably too busy reading wrestling magazines under the desk or passing notes with Michel or Keith to have noticed her.

“Not really,” he says, trying to change the subject. “Hey Dad, did you ever finish painting the basement?”

“The primer’s down, but your mother won’t pick a color.”

“White isn’t an option?”

Apparently, he’s walked into the middle of an ongoing argument - because Dad is fine with white but Mom thinks it’ll show too many marks - and their affectionate bickering is actually a little soothing. He misses them, living down here. A visit home every year and their annual trip to see him every winter just makes him miss them more. 

And that brings up a whole other series of questions he’s been trying not to think about. Is it time to give up on getting a vet tech job in Montreal? Move home and maybe work in another job? Apartments are cheaper in Quebec, food’s cheaper, people are nicer, the driving doesn’t make him want to kill people… what’s really keeping him in Florida beyond a great, decently-paying job with coworkers he likes and a couple friends?

“So what is this I hear from Claudio that you have a new boyfriend?” his mother asks, startling him.

“What? No, what the hell has he been telling you - when do you talk to him anyway?”

“I had a question about our computer, it’s been freezing up recently, and we have his number from when you all came up for Robert’s wedding. No distracting me, _bébé_ , I want to know everything. Who is he, what does he do-?”

Kevin groans, thudding his head against the back of the couch. “I don’t have a boyfriend. Claudio and Sara just want to play matchmaker, for some reason.”

“Well, I don’t think they’d just decide this for no reason,” his father says, eyes twinkling. “There must be something that you and this boy have in common for Claudio to - oh, what is the phrase - set you off?”

“Set us up, Dad. Though he _is_ gonna set me off if he keeps telling my parents about my nonexistent boyfriend. I mean, Sami and I don’t even have anything in common, he’s a barista at the coffee shop we all go to, and he’s vegan. He’s chirpy and overbearing and actually thinks polo shirts look good outside of a golf course. And he wears stupid hats. What?”

His parents are smiling at him, and his father laughs. “Claudio was right.”

“No he wasn’t! Why would you-?”

“If you have noticed his hats, _mon cheri_ , you are interested. With Eddie, it was his shoes. And with James, also the hats.” His mother crosses her arms, satisfied with her point. “Besides, you’re blushing, and you would not do that unless you had considered dating this Sami.”

Yes, of course he’s considered dating Sami. He has eyes to confirm that yes, Sami’s probably one of the most gorgeous men he’s ever seen. He has ears to eavesdrop and learn that Sami’s caring and friendly and genuinely loves his friends. He even thinks the snapbacks are cute when the brim frames Sami’s hazel eyes and lets a curl or two of red hair escape. That shirtless photo on Jimmy’s phone has been Kevin’s jerkoff material for weeks. He could easily see bringing Sami home to his parents, they’d love him…

But Sami doesn’t want to date Kevin, Sami dates built dudes like Matt. Or Finn, he doesn’t believe Renee when she says they’re only friends. It’s just not going to happen.

“I’m not _not_ interested,” he says, pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “I just don’t think he is. Can we drop it?”

His parents agree, going on to tell him about Eric’s new promotion and the terrible neighbor whose dog keeps eating his mother’s garden. It’s easy and monotonous to listen to his parents, and ten minutes later, claim he has work to finish. They agree on a time next week to call, and Kevin hangs up, yanking the phone cord away from Dwight.

“Hey, get your claws off that,” he says, annoyed. Dwight meows sharply at him, and he stashes the cord in a drawer. “I’ve already replaced two chargers cause you think they’re fun to chew on.”

Dwight rolls onto his back, shamelessly begging for belly rubs, and Kevin laughs as he scratches at his cat’s belly. Feeling the fur beneath his hand reminds him of Sami and Gucci - is Sami only a cat person, or does he like dogs too? If they dated, would Sami want to walk Milo in the park or throw his chew rope across the floor for hours? Would he laugh at the way Dwight lets Milo curl up in his cat bed with him? Would he get angry at Milo waking him up because he wants to sleep on the bed and needs his ramp closer?

This is pointless. Sami’s not going to be dating him, and he has six pages of rewrites to do on that new game he's been assigned before tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, [Sami's cat Gucci](http://shes-a-voodoo-child.tumblr.com/post/177752697516/thereluctantguardian-mayanangel-finn-sami) is 18 years old and doesn't care about you or anyone else.
> 
> I don't know Kevin's brother's name, but for the purposes of this story, it's Eric. 
> 
> mon beau - my handsome boy  
> depanneur - convenience store in Quebec  
> bébé - baby  
> mon cheri - my darling


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin's dog facilitates a chance meeting and his first time trying ramen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: This chapter discusses an unfortunate reality of being a veterinarian, animal euthanization. The subject is considered and discussed by Kevin as a vet tech, but no euthanization is depicted. The aftermath of euthanization on vets, along with the frequently accompanying depressive episodes and mood swings, however, is. I debated including the subject in the story, but ultimately, one cannot be a veterinarian or work in a vet practice without confronting it, and thus it felt dishonest to this version of Kevin and his job not to include it.

On Thursday, he’s throwing the chew rope for Milo in the park, and it’s a nice, mindless activity. Mindless is pretty good right now, because Kevin’s mind isn’t a great place to be today.

It never gets easier. Steve told him when he started at Winter Hill that he’d eventually stop keeping count of the euthanizations, and he’d protested. No, he would remember them, he’d be fine, it’s part of the job that he just needs to get used to. Sometimes there’s just no other option, sometimes there’s no other way to ease an animal’s pain. He’d learn to be fine with it.

(Kevin would like to punch his younger self in the face sometimes.)

So he’s got fresh air and Milo and he’s thinking about maybe grabbing a burger, and he doesn’t want to kill people anymore. This is good, right? Healthy, better than any alternatives?

He takes the rope from Milo - yipping and scrabbling at the leg of his jeans - and is about to throw it when Milo suddenly takes off toward someone jogging on the trail and barking in earnest. Kevin scrambles for the leash and chases Milo down, scooping him up as he reaches the jogger.

“Hey, you jerk, what’re you running off for? You’re not supposed to chase people. Sorry for that.”

The guy pushes back his hood and _oh_. Sami.

“Kevin,” he says, a little out of breath. Kevin is certainly not staring at the rise and fall of his chest and the sheen of sweat at his hairline, turning the red curls darker. “Hey, I didn’t know you lived around here. And you have a dog!”

Milo is still barking, because someone is Near His Human, and Kevin sticks the rope in Milo’s mouth. It muffles the sound, but he’s still growling, and Kevin scratches his ears with his free hand. “Yeah, this is Milo, and he’s going to be a pain for a while. He’s weird around new people - yes, I heard you, you think Sami’s a threat, and you’re being ridiculous.”

Sami stretches out his hand - relaxed, unthreatening - letting Milo sniff at him. Milo lets him get in a few chin scratches before growling softly again, and Kevin switches arms to clip his leash on. 

“Not working today?” he asks Sami, setting Milo down to explore the trail. Milo waddles off on his little dachsund legs, sniffing and yipping, and Kevin turns back to listen to Sami.

“Nah, I only work Thursday mornings. Just left and had to run off some frustration.” Kevin raises his eyebrow, and Sami sighs loudly, cracking his knuckles. “We got audited today, and I’m not worried, but Daniel always freaks when they come in. Everything’s just got to be perfect and everyone has to be happy and smiling, and if something’s not perfect, he can’t deal. He made Bayley cry! And between calming her down and talking Nigel out of quitting and answering a billion questions from the auditors about closing procedure and end of year profit margins, I’m wiped.”

“Makes sense,” Kevin says, untangling Milo’s leash from where he’s got it wrapped around a nearby tree. “Audits are always bullshit. At least you can leave it all at the shop. Doesn’t have to come home with you.”

“Oh, yeah, it’s just - argh! I just washed these!” Sami twists around to study a grass stain on his sweatpants. “I hate doing laundry, don’t you?”

Kevin shrugs. “I like clean clothes. So the audit’s over, right?”

Sami groans, theatrically. “I wish! They’re going to be here until Saturday, because that’s when Shinsuke gets here.” Kevin’s confusion must show, because Sami hops up on the back of a nearby bench and answers the unspoken question. “Shinsuke is Daniel’s business partner, from Kyoto. He comes over a couple times a year to check in on the shop, he owns a bunch of different businesses here, but he mostly likes coming to Florida to surf and take us out for really good ramen.”

There are so many questions, but Kevin’s arriving at one. “Ramen?”

“The food?”

“I mean, I’m aware that people like it, but isn’t it just cheap noodles?”

You’d think he’d just slapped Sami across the face, the look of shocked dismay he gets. “No no no no, not the instant stuff. _Real_ ramen, fresh-made with noodles and vegetables and chashu and broth and seriously?! You’ve never had real ramen?”

“Uh, no.”

Sami leaps off the bench, grabbing Kevin’s hand. “Unacceptable. Come on, we’re going to Audubon, you need to experience Domu.”

Kevin digs his feet in, dragging Sami to a stop. “Okay, I didn’t drive and I have Milo with me-”

“Bring him along, half of Florida has their dogs. Or we can drop him off, I’m parked across the street. But I refuse to let you continue living a ramenless life, it is just unfair.”

How can you argue with Sami, when he’s looking so earnest and adorable? 

Oh. He's still holding Sami's hand.

*** 

Kevin learns a lot about Sami Zayn (“like the pop star, but I should have full rights to the name, I was using it first!”) in just the ten-minute car ride to drop Milo off at Kevin’s apartment and then drive to the restaurant. He drives a slightly beat-up Prius that he refuses to hear a word against. He loves punk and ska music and will force you to listen to it. He’s mostly-vegan, but still gets cravings for fried chicken once every couple months. He speaks English, French, and Arabic fluently, but despite living in Florida for six years, his Spanish is awful. He’s seen every episode of the Simpsons. He has Opinions about everything and will explain them to you at length.

He isn’t sure if he wants to strangle Sami or kiss him, but Kevin suspects this a common reaction.

They're sitting in a cramped (some would say cozy, but they've never had to deal with Sami’s knees and elbows) booth, with giant bowls of noodles and slices of something meat-like Kevin has yet to identify in front of them. Sami has chopsticks held between his fingers, waving them as he talks, but Kevin is desperately hoping for the ground to swallow him up. 

Or a fork.

“Oh man, I always forget how good their vegan ramen is. So much miso! And the kikurage is just amazing! Here, you should try some of it-"

“No, I'm good.”

Sami continues to hold out a lump of something brown. “No, it's so good, you have to try it, I can't believe how much flavor they put in it-"

“For fuck's sake, no. You're worse than my mother.”

“My mother’s Syrian, I guarantee you she has yours beat on guilting her kid into eating. I still hear her voice when I don’t finish my plate - _Sami, habibi, la tahdir altaeam_.”

Oh. Kevin guesses that’s why Sami’s fluent in Arabic. He sounds beautiful speaking it, but then again, Kevin’s come to terms with the fact that he kind of thinks everything about Sami is beautiful.

“Fine, I’ll try it - just… will they give me a fork?”

Sami laughs, but it isn’t unkind. “Of course. You should have just gone and asked the waitress.” He jumps up and goes to ask at the counter, and Kevin tries not to kick himself. He could have been inhaling the really-interesting-smelling soup. “You never got the hang of chopsticks?” Sami asks, handing him a fork and spoon.

Kevin shrugs. “I never really eat that much Asian food. Marieville didn’t even get a sushi place until I was 18, and by then, I’d already moved to the States for school.”

“Wait, Marieville in Québec? _Tu viens du Québec?_ ”

Sami has that suburban-kid accent, textbook French, and Kevin raises an eyebrow.

_“Tu n’as vraiment pas reconnu mon accent?”_

He goes to eat some of his no-longer-nuclear hot noodles and soup, and wow. Wow. It’s absolutely as good as Sami had said, but he’s not about to admit it. Sami, meanwhile, is picking some of the weird-looking greens out of his soup and rolling his eyes at Kevin.

“You don’t have an accent. At least, I can’t hear one, I’m terrible at that stuff. I was studying to be an English teacher, and I couldn’t deal with the linguistics stuff, drilling consonant clusters and trying to get the extra schwa sounds out of my words.”

“You don’t teach? I think you’d be fun.”

Sami shakes his head, waves his hands. “Nah, I loved teaching - I still do! I tutor a couple of the FIU students in Arabic and writing - but it was too expensive. Working at Busaiku and my grant-writing pays the bills, but it doesn’t fund a master’s degree.” 

“When do you have time for a side gig in grant-writing? You’re literally always at the coffee shop.”

“I helped found a nonprofit after college, we work with various medical charities in Syria to provide funds and access to water filtration. Daniel’s actually an investor, so that’s how it works - Busaiku is kind of our side-gig, and the nonprofit is the real business. Daniel does the organizational and public-speaking stuff, because let me tell you, I panic at the thought of speaking in front of people. I stick to research and do all the grant-writing.”

Holy _crap_. Kevin’s sort of blown-away - Sami’s an actual philanthropist, who basically runs a nonprofit and works a bunch of hours at a coffee shop for shits and giggles. He says he doesn’t do the public interaction and speeches, but Kevin’s imagining him in a nice suit (navy blue, not black, it’d wash him out), smiling and charming potential donors.

“Jesus. That - you’re gonna need to give me a minute. That’s amazing, the charity work you’re doing.”

Sami ducks his head, slurping at his bowl of ramen. “Ah,” he says, after downing half the broth, “it’s just . . . it’s something I had to do. I couldn’t sit by when the bombing in Syria started, but if I ever went there, my parents would be worried sick. So, you know, this is something I’m good at. Haranguing people into giving me money and doing what good I can.”

“You’re better than most people,” Kevin responds, sipping at his soda. “You back up the do-gooder schtick with actual results. You wouldn’t be operational after what, three years, if you weren’t pretty fucking awesome at purpose analysis and budgeting. It ain’t easy.”

“You know, most people don’t usually drop grantsmanship terms into a casual lunch conversation,” Sami says, diplomatically.

“My job isn’t just cuddling adorable animals and shit.” He doesn’t mean to sound defensive, but it’s definitely people’s first assumption about him - that he didn’t work hard to graduate with his veterinary degree, that he knows nothing about the financial side of the practice. “Steve and Candice are the ones who handle most of the finance, but I’ve done a bunch of fundraising. Vet practices don’t stay operational unless they know how to market themselves to rich assholes and their wives with purse dogs they don’t intend to actually care for.”

Sami’s quiet for a moment, watches Kevin stab at some noodles. “That’s a pretty specifically directed anger you’ve got there.” 

Kevin swears he doesn’t mean to tear up, but Lillie’s face appears when he closes his eyes, and yeah, he’s sort of sniffling. He scrubs at his eyes and looks away, looks at the window and the counter with the kitchen guys prepping bowls of ramen, and not at Sami’s kind, sweet face. 

“Teacup chihuahua, only a year old. Vanity present for the wife of some fucking hedge-funder that she brought in to us because she can’t be fucked to care about the dog. Wouldn’t consider a shelter, kept insisting the dog was vicious and bit her six year old, so we had no choice but to put the dog to sleep. Not my first, not by a long shot, but every single one of them, I hate. People are fucking awful, why should animals suffer for it?”

He realizes he’s been ranting, and he’s actually crying by this point, and clearly it’s time to fuck off and leave Sami to enjoy his food. He mutters “sorry” and shoves his chair back, heading for the door. Belatedly, when he’s hit the parking lot, he realizes he didn’t drive, and it’s going to be a nice, hot, 2-mile walk back home.

And then he’s spun around and wrapped in Sami’s arms. 

This is not a tentative, pat-pat-it’s-okay-bro kind of hug. This is Sami’s hand on the back of his head, an arm wrapped around his waist, and full-body contact. He can feel Sami’s beard against his ear, and he tries to halfheartedly pull away, but Sami’s got a pretty strong grip.

It’s honestly something he didn’t know he needed.

Sami’s voice is quiet, but he hears it even through the traffic noise. 

“Do you want me to let go?”

Kevin’s heartbeat thuds in his ears, and he shakes his head. “No.”

“Okay. I just - I needed to do this. Because you’re a good person, Kevin, and you should be angry at people like that, but you shouldn’t be ashamed of caring. I couldn’t do what you do. You might think it’s stupid or unimportant, but it’s not.”

He should be shoving Sami away, or thinking about the awkwardness, or panicking over his crush, and he’s just not. Sami hugging him feels *right*, like something he didn’t know was missing has just fallen into place. Something that softens his edges and makes everything in his head go quiet, and he takes a long, slow breath. Then another.

They stand there, breathing together in silence in the parking lot of a ramen shop, and this is the moment that Kevin admits it.

He might be a little bit in love with Sami Zayn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hilariously enough, I finished writing this chapter *just* as Karina posted an adorable photo of her [actually taking Kevin to Domu for ramen](https://www.instagram.com/p/BhsgYtyhSLr/?taken-by=karinaleilasteen) for the first time. Domu's ramen is definitely life-changing, please go try it if you're in Orlando.
> 
> Sami, habibi, la tahdir altaeam = Sami, darling, don't waste food  
> Tu viens du Québec? = You're from Quebec?  
> Tu n’as vraiment pas reconnu mon accent? = You really didn't recognize my accent?


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jimmy calls in a favor, Kevin has Opinions about indy wrestling, and Sami reappears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short update, y'all, this month has been bananas. But this sets up the next few chapters, and hopefully the start of the boys getting their shit together with this falling-in-love thing.

It’s Wednesday night before he realizes he hasn’t seen Sami in nearly a week.

He’s been to Busaiku, of course - a few mornings where he traded video-game talk with Bayley and asked Xavier where he got his Ren and Stimpy tee shirt and only saw the back of Sami’s head once. He’d also spent Monday night sitting at one of the outside tables with Renee and Dean and Seth and playing Exploding Kittens (look, he disapproves of the name, but it’s fun as shit) and Sami hadn’t even been working. He’s tried texting Jimmy and casually bringing up the fact that both of them know Sami, but either Jimmy’s playing dumb, or really doesn’t get why Kevin’s asking. He’s attempted to go through Seth and Nattie and Bayley, too, and it always seems to be a dead-end.

He even got Candice to send a reminder to Sami about the kitten’s ear mites (and did not ask for Sami’s email or number, even though he could abuse their client database to get it), but then he had to take Andre up to the Levesques and it was a whole afternoon of answering Stephanie’s questions and reminding the girls that they had to be careful of Andre’s leg. By the time he got back to the office, Sami’s weird roommate Adrian had apparently brought the newly-named Gracie in and left.

Kevin is depressed and frustrated and feeling uncomfortably like he’s back in middle school, trying to get the attention of the cute boy in phys ed by slap-shotting tennis balls at his head. 

(It hadn’t worked then, either. Zach had been a soccer star and completely unconcerned with awkward hockey-playing Kevin. He’d grown up to be a news anchor with a wife, four kids, and the ugliest doberman mix Kevin has ever seen.)

So when Jimmy calls him back at 2:45 on Thursday afternoon, Kevin does not think to get his hopes up. 

“Y’ello?”

“Do you have an extra dog collar?”

Kevin blinks. “I don’t think you should subject Alfie to another pet, man-”

“No no no no, I mean a big one. Like one for a pit bull, that could fit a human.”

“I’m not kinkshaming, buddy, but you know that’s why the internet exists.”

Jimmy groans in exasperation, his voice blaring out of Kevin’s phone. “Do you have one or not? I need it for work, if I can’t get one, the entire match stip is going to need to be changed-”

Wait, _wait_ , back the fuck _up_.

“Match?! You fucking jerk, we lived together, you listened to me complaining about Raw and Smackdown for six months, we watched Omega vs Okada 2 and I said all that shit and you didn’t fucking think to mention you were a wrestler?”

__“You’re such a fucking purist! You hate indy-” Jimmy cuts himself off and takes an audible breath. “You can yell at me about it after the match tonight. I’ll get you a ticket if you can get the collar to the show in Tampa by 6:30. Bell’s at 7. I’ll text you the address.”_ _

__Jimmy hangs up on him, the address pops up, and Kevin has to sit there and stare at his phone. He’s going to a Full Impact Pro show, he’s bringing a dog collar with him, and he’s going to watch his ex-roommate do something he’s loved since he was eleven. He has no idea how to feel about it, and he needs to get his head back in work fast, because Steve yells for him to get his ass in Exam 4 and deal with the dental cleaning he’s supposed to be doing._ _

__It’s after finishing up for the day, inhaling some tacos, walking Milo, and changing into a Shawn shirt (always the best, fight him), when he’s in the car driving that he feels that old excitement he used to feel going to shows at the Bell Center._ _

__He’s missed it._ _

__***_ _

__At the door, one of the security guys takes the dog collar from him and gives him a ticket, saying Jimmy’s “in makeup” at the moment. Whatever that means._ _

__Kevin goes in - it’s a converted armory, exactly the kind of shitty bingo hall aesthetic the indy feds love, like they’re going to create the new ECW arena - and ignores the beer and popcorn table in favor of a vending machine. Can of Coke, a Snickers bar, and a bag of Doritos are way better than anything else on offer, and he follows the blistering sound of nu-metal to the auditorium._ _

__He isn’t expecting any sort of real crowd, but the turnout’s pretty good. Not just jerks in Bullet Club shirts, either; a mix of kids and guys his age and too-cool twentysomethings and older fans. Women too, even if he has to wince at the girl on one of the aisles in platform stilettos and an artfully-ripped Suplex City shirt. He shows his ticket to one of the crew and gets led down to the barricade at the front._ _

__There’s three empty seats next to his, so he throws his hoodie and snacks on the closest one. On his other side, a girl with glasses in a vintage Ramones tee is explaining the card to her pink-haired friend, and he eavesdrops. A tag match is starting off - no one he’s heard of, though glasses-girl thinks one team are “good but no Bucks” - then a match that she apparently doesn’t care about, then a women’s match involving a Japanese wrestler Kevin thinks he’s heard of, and then Jimmy’s dog-collar match (against some guy named Callihan), with the main event being a joint venture with DDT Pro._ _

__“Hey asshole, move your shit.”_ _

__“Oh my god, Dean, you could say please.”_ _

__“Please move your shit.”_ _

__Kevin turns around, retort on the tip of his tongue. “What if I didn’t, fuckface?”_ _

__Dean looks hilariously surprised, eyes wide, and Bayley chokes on the beer she’s sipping. Kevin raises his eyebrow meaningfully, and Dean rolls his eyes._ _

__“C’mon, Owens, I asked all nice. Sami’s going to be really sad if he doesn’t have a front row look at his Japanese boyfriend.” Kevin tries to hide his disappointed whine by moving his hoodie onto the back of his own chair, and sticking his candy into the pocket. Bayley smirks and shoves Dean into the third chair, which he protests. “Dude, you’re skipping-”_ _

__“Dude,” she says, “you know I have to sit between you two. Last time, you punched Sami, got mad when he punched you back, and almost got us thrown out. Anyway, hi Kevin!”_ _

__“Hi Bayley. I didn’t know you liked wrestling.”_ _

__She laughs and steals one of Dean’s contraband french fries (“what part of ‘get your own’ didn’t you understand, bubblegum?”), wiping her hand on a napkin she pulls out of her jeans, and he really kind of likes her airbrushed Razor Ramon shirt. “Grew up with it. I must have spent my teen years at every show in the Bay Area.”_ _

__“What’re you even doing here, Owens?” Dean says, loud enough to get a glare from the pink-haired girl on the other side of Kevin. “Jimmy says you worship at the Church of McMahon alone.”_ _

__“I’m sorry, I like to watch actual professionals. Jimmy owes me, considering I facilitated his dog collar match, getting a free ticket out of it was the least he could do.”_ _

__Dean shrugs and goes back to eating his french fries, and Kevin and Bayley continue their conversation. He finds out she’s from San Jose, a beach girl, and like him, she’d moved to Florida for school. She drops some startling curses when warning him off the University of Miami’s grad-psychology program (Jesus, is there an IQ requirement at Busaiku? Everyone’s so _smart_ ), and they’re settling into a debate on the definitive cage matches in history when Sami starts elbowing his way down the row._ _

__“Oops, sorry, didn’t mean to step on your foot, sorry, ow, just let me - sorry about that, miss, hi Dean, hi Bay, what’s up, nice shirt, can I just - oh. Hi, Kevin.”_ _

__And he means to tell Sami off for being MIA all week, but first off, Sami kind of looks like hell (dark circles under his eyes, jeans that look like he’s slept in them, water stain on his weird dragon-looking shirt), and second, he’s wearing quite possibly the dumbest hat in existence. He looks like a sexy paperboy, and Kevin’s still trying to form words when Sami slides into the seat next to him._ _

__“Oh my god, I can’t believe it took me that long just to find out if the nachos were vegan, you’d think I threatened to sacrifice a bunny rabbit or something. I had to go to the 7-11 to get granola and Pepsi because that bullshit vending machine only has Coke - here’s the five I owe you from earlier, Bay-”_ _

__Dean stretches out his hand. “Hey, I want money. I sprang for that Uber last week.”_ _

__“Yeah, after literally a whole year of promising us to pay next time,” Bayley retorts, taking the five and tucking it into her purse. “Thank you, Sami.”_ _

__“No problem. Dude,” he says, nudging Kevin’s arm. “How did we spend two hours at Domu and never figured out we both were into wrestling? That’s so amazing!”_ _

__Kevin has no earthly idea, but Sami can feel free to continue beaming at him like this. Sami likes _wrestling_ , this is the best thing ever, and he doesn't care what anyone else has to say about it._ _


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin experiences the, um, unique fun of accompanying Sami to a wrestling show, and Sami attempts to understand how one can be a wrestling fan and not actually like indy wrestling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I LIVE! So, December was insane and I was working on stuff that was closer to being finished than this, but I am fully back on my bullshit with a few more chapters and an endgame in sight. Much love for coming on this ride so far, everyone.

“WHAT WAS THAT?! WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU CALL THAT? THAT SUCKED, MY FUCKING GRANDMOTHER THROWS BETTER PUNCHES THAN YOU, ASSHOLE. OH MY GOD FUCKING LEARN TO COUNT, REF.”

So, Kevin has learned why Dean isn't allowed to sit next to Sami, and Kevin kind of can't blame Dean. Sami is the loudest and most obnoxious heckler in the state. He screams at every heel, cheers for every face, and if he doesn't stop yelling in Kevin's ear, Kevin is not going to be responsible for what he does, which is punch Sami in his face.

The tag team in the ring - OVE? OVA? Something like that - does a springboard moonsault/baseball slide dropkick combo, and it looks cool, but the other guy (dark-haired, equally as douchey-looking as his blonde partner) has literally no clue how to sell. The ref barely gets a one count before blonde douchebag tags in and starts trying his weak-ass punches again. The taller OVE dude dropkicks Blondie out of the ring and he goes sprawling against the barricade by Kevin. 

Sami, of course, starts yelling again, this time from about five inches from the guy's face.

“THAT'S WHAT YOU GET, SHITHEAD-"

“Oh my god, it's like you _want_ to get punched,” Kevin yells back, grabbing Sami around the waist and hauling him away from the blonde wrestler. “Sorry about him!” he says to the guy, who flips them both off and makes Sami actually hiss at him.

This leaves him with his arms around Sami’s waist and his hips pressed against Sami’s really excellent ass, and while Dean starts smirking and making jokes, Kevin is a little more concerned with his armful of pissy redheaded barista.

“Why are you stopping me?! It's not like Gulak’s going to HIT ANYTHING WITH HIS BULLSHIT PUNCHES.”

“ _How_ has he never been punched by someone?” Kevin asks Bayley, and she shrugs, helping him tug Sami back into his seat. “Will you fucking chill?”

Sami sprawls in the folding chair, pointing to the ring. “I’ll chill when Catch Point stops being smarmy little assholes, YEAH YOU TJP YOUR 450 IS BULLSHIT - seriously, what is your deal? Bayley and Dean don’t care what I say.”

“It’s quality heckling and no one’s aiming for me.” Dean shrugs. “Get socked in the face, then, Zayn, see if I care.” He goes back to drinking his beer and watching the match.

“He’s usually, um, quieter. And we’re usually further back,” Bayley says, reaching out an arm to push Sami back down as he tries to get up. “Sami, if Gulak or TJP punch you in the face, you won’t be able to watch Kota, and we will never ever hear the end of it. Please don’t let Catch Point punch you in the face.”

Sami sulks, and it kind of makes Kevin want to cheer him up, so he swallows some soda and takes a breath before he asks “so you’re a Kota fan?”

“Oh my god, of course! Isn’t he magical?”

Kevin has literally zero clue who Sami is talking about. He doesn’t watch anything but WWE (and a handful of New Japan matches that Jimmy or Seth had hijacked him into), and indy wrestling is almost never worth his time. But Sami clearly loves it, and Kevin wants to see him light up some more.

“I, uh, haven’t really seen him. I don’t watch indy shit.”

Sami’s eyes go wide and he turns in his seat, ignoring the tag match in the ring. 

“What?! How can - I don’t understand, you’re _at_ an indy show.”

“Because despite being an annoying little punk, Jimmy’s one of my best friends.”

“Okay, we are going to talk about that later, because I don’t understand how we’re both friends with Jimmy and never met each other before, but oh my god. Kevin, seriously, how do you not know about Kota Ibushi? Three-time IWGP junior heavyweight champion, one half of the Golden Lovers, master of the Golden Star 450 splash because let me tell you, _that_ is a fucking 450 splash, not TJP’s Walmart ripoff-”

Kevin has to break in. “Yeah, so he can fly. Can he wrestle?”

Another wide-eyed look, Sami digging his phone out of his pocket.

“Look at this, look at this, this is Ibushi vs Okada - please fucking tell me you’ve heard of Okada.”

“Yeah, of course. Jimmy elbowed me through all 62 minutes of his Dominion match with Kenny Omega. Overrated, if you ask me.”

Sami actually whimpers, swiping and pressing buttons on his phone. “Oh my God, you’re killing me. You’re breaking my heart right here, okay, look at this, this is Ibushi and Okada at the Tokyo Dome, 2016 but like, way before Okada won the Heavyweight title. Just watch this, it’s so amazing-”

“Oh, great,” Dean whines from Sami’s other side, “you wound him up. Strap in for a 20-minute dissertation about how _amaaaaaaazing_ Ibushi is, and being forced to watch match after match because you’re clearly an idiot child unless you agree with him.”

Bayley whacks Dean in the chest, and steals more of his fries. Kevin settles in to watch the match on Sami’s phone, ignoring the match in the ring (eh, they’re half-decent, way too much flippy shit for Kevin’s taste), and ignoring how Sami’s shoulder brushes against his. Sami is warm and smiling and whispering in Kevin’s ear about _oh oh look at his reverse neckbreaker see how he chains it into the senton wait for it wait for it YES the bridging dragon suplex!_

Okay, he’s actually sort of an Okada fan now, and maybe he’ll come around to Ibushi. If it gets him more of Sami curled against his side whispering into his ear, all warm breath and solid muscle, Kevin will sit through all the dissertations Sami wants.

***

They nearly get kicked out for watching New Japan matches on Sami’s phone, but it’s worth it to Kevin. 

The second match is stupid, the women’s match is good so they put the phone away, but there’s a pointless rambling promo before Jimmy’s match, and so Sami decides to show Kevin more Kota matches. The nearest rent-a-cop thinks Sami is recording illegally, and then gets more annoyed when Sami shows him what they’re actually watching, but Dean decides to be nice and talks the guy down. They have to put all phones away and Sami complains, but they stay.

Jimmy’s match is pretty good. Kevin will never like gimmick matches, they’re too reliant on the prop or stipulation and not the actual skill of the wrestlers, but he’s fascinated by Jimmy’s whole presentation. The everyday makeup and nail polish he wears amped up for the crowd, the blue and white fur jacket and black poofy skirt, tiara on his hair and a spike between his teeth. He wrestles like a combination of junkyard dog and technician, tenacious little shit throwing haymakers one minute and then busting out a beautiful drop toehold or crisp guillotine neckbreaker the next.

Sami does not heckle during Jimmy’s match. According to Dean, this is because the other guy won’t stop at just punching Sami, and also because Jimmy has threatened to disown him if he does. However, he does hiss commentary at a breakneck pace throughout the match, half of it Kevin can’t even catch, but the rest is about wanting Jimmy to duck the chain, get the octopus hold locked, watch Callihan’s kicks.

Kevin hisses back that it’s not the kicks, it’s those brutal fucking knee strikes, and Sami ducks his head closer to Kevin’s. He smells like body spray and popcorn and Kevin wants to bury his nose in the crook of Sami’s neck. Settles for resting his shoulder against Sami’s, and joining him in cheering obnoxiously any time Jimmy gets in offense.

Jimmy wins with a chain shot followed by a spear - huh, who knew a smaller guy could get that much power in it? - and once the chain is off, does a flashy corner backflip cutter that Sami cheers for.

“Contra Code! He totally let me name his finisher, it’s so awesome. It's the cheat code from-"

“From the Konami game and a bunch of others, I know. I *have* played video games before.”

“Oh, dude, what’s your poison? Please tell me it’s not some bullshit like Call of Duty or Fallout 4. Give me a good story game like Final Fantasy VI or Assassins’ Creed any day.”

Kevin’s heart actually skips a beat, because of course, of course Sami loves the story-driven games and of course he likes FFVI, and he’s probably played through Brotherhood a bunch of times.

“Tomb Raider and Legend of Zelda as a kid. Wore out Knights of the Old Republic and Bioshock on XBox. I like some of the weird horror stuff like Soma and Half Life 2. I dunno, I try not to play a ton of video games, it feels like every time I play, I can feel the ideas just evaporating.” Sami’s looking at him, head tilted, slightly puzzled, and Kevin steels himself. “I, uh, write video games as a hobby. Nothing you’d have played. They just call me when they need a script doctor.”

“Holy fuck,” Sami breathes, “that is the coolest thing ever.”

“It totally is,” Bayley echoes, shamelessly eavesdropping. “You should come to Vintage Night! There’s this bar near me and Sasha’s apartment that hosts old-school gaming tournaments, stuff like Sonic and Mario Kart and Mortal Kombat.”

“You so should, oh my god, I can’t get over how cool that is-”

Sami gets interrupted by Jimmy rolling out of the ring in front of their seats, blood beading at his hairline and staining his cheek, but grinning at them. He bumps fists with Dean and ruffles his hair, kisses Bayley’s hand, and finally throws one arm around Kevin and one around Sami.

“ _Boys_ , stop flirting, your princess has been motherfucking VICTORIOUS!” He smacks a kiss onto first Sami’s and then Kevin’s cheeks. “Love you booooooth, stitches are calling!”

They don’t really get a chance to breathe before Jimmy’s sashaying his way to the back and the entrance music for the last match is starting. The first guy out is someone Kevin’s heard of - Austin Aries - and then comes... okay, wow, Kota Ibushi is just that beautiful. He comes out of the curtain to a number of screams, including Sami, who is clutching Kevin’s arm in nervous excitement.

“Buddy, you’re gonna need to breathe,” Kevin says, and Sami continues to cheer for Kota and not let go of Kevin.

This is not, strictly speaking, a problem, so Kevin just resigns himself to having Sami’s hand around his arm and Sami himself excitedly whispering various Ibushi facts into Kevin’s ear. The match itself is really good, he has to admit, all sorts of great counters and face-offs. He marks pretty hard for Kota moonsaulting off the barrier right in front of them, but Sami - wow, Sami is just straight-up _losing his mind_. Hands pressed to his mouth, almost hyperventilating and going “ohmygod ohmygod oh my GOD”.

The highlight has to be the comeback. Kevin’s a sucker for a good comeback, and after Aries beating down Kota for a while, Kota hits another moonsault, this time a Lionsault to the inside, countered into a small package, countered into a bridging dragon suplex. Then Kota goes up to the top again and hits a 450 splash that, yes, is miles better than the one in the opening match. The sheer height he gets is insane, and after the pin, Kota rolls out of the ring right in front of them.

He shakes hands with the fans to the right of Kevin, and Kevin watches Sami’s face fall because he’s not close enough. Kevin ducks around him to stand next to Bayley, which lets Sami reach out and pat Kota’s shoulder. The guy turns, sees Sami wearing his shirt, and smiles and waves at Sami before heading back up the ramp.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin and Sami drive back to Orlando, giving them time to learn more about each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally got this one edited! Sorry for the delay, my beta had to wrangle my newly-developed inability to stop using adverbs. As ever, it is missing Sami hours, so hopefully, this is a sign that he'll be back soon.

Dean and Bayley take off right after the main event, with apologies (“sorry, guys, I promised Renee I’d have him back before 11, she doesn’t have keys and might be locked out”), and considering Jimmy’s covered in blood, he’s texted both Kevin and Sami that they’ll hang later.

Which leaves Kevin with a slightly-manic Sami, elated by the main event and touching Kota’s shoulder, but still looking like he’s slept in his clothes and forgotten to eat for the past couple days. Kevin does not do vegan food, and he’s not really into Asian, but Jimmy had frog-marched him to this little Vietnamese place once and they do vegan pho alongside the full-meat stuff. At the very least, it might chill Sami out a little.

“I’m still not over that moonsault off the barrier,” Sami gushes, walking down the path to the parking lot. “God, did you see that? How perfect that arch was? The height? And I - um, Kevin, where are we going?”

Kevin fishes his keys out of his jeans pocket. “Well, Bayley and Dean left and you didn’t drive, so I can’t just leave you here. And considering you look like you have the universe’s worst hangover, I think food is a good idea.”

Sami tilts his head a little, but gets into the passenger seat of the car. He buckles up and is oddly quiet until Kevin has turned the car on and driven to the entrance of the lot. “I’m not hungover,” he says abruptly. “I don’t drink.”

“Okay. Neither do I. Alcohol tastes disgusting.”

“No, I mean, I never drink. Muslims aren’t allowed to have alcohol, it’s  _ haraam _ . So I’m not hungover.”

Kevin nods again, and turns out of the lot. The drive is only about an hour, but Sami’s dead quiet. Well, until he starts fiddling with the radio - which Kevin keeps on the Disney Spotify playlist - and the second half of “Friends on the Other Side” starts playing, and Sami starts giggling, his fingers hovering over the controls.

“I like Disney,” Kevin says flatly. “Touch that station and I toss your ass onto I4.”

“That’s kind of cute. Can we compromise on classic rock?”

“Yeah, all right.” 

Sami cues up a ‘best of the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s rock’ playlist and ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’ starts playing. Sami himself is air-drumming, but Kevin suspects Sami’s heart really isn’t in it. Kevin doesn’t kid himself that he really knows Sami well, but he seems subdued. Even his heckling at the show had seemed reflexive. He’d only really lit up during Kota and Aries’ match, and when he thinks Kevin’s concentrating on driving, his face settles into an apprehensive frown.

Kevin is about to tell him to spit whatever-it-is out when Sami suddenly sits up. 

“When was the last time you went back to Montreal?”

He actually has to think a little, and switches lanes before responding. “About a year ago. My parents’ anniversary is next month, it’s my dad’s birthday a couple weeks later, so I usually go in June. Why?”

“I just - I flew in last night from possibly the worst trip I’ve ever taken.”

Sami grabs his hat off his head, twists it around in his hands, and he’s got some epic hat hair going on, but Kevin’s not going to mock or interrupt. This sounds serious.

“I’ve been living in the States for almost six years. It doesn’t seem so long, but I don’t know, this week just really pounded it home. I got to the airport and tried asking a question to one of the gate agents. She didn’t understand my French. I grew up speaking it in school and I don’t - I don’t really practice, but I text and talk with my friends and family back home. All I said was  _ pouvez-vous me dire où se trouve la ligne d'enregistrement _ , but she looked at me like I had three heads.”

“ _ Tu me parais bien,”  _ Kevin remarks, but Sami groans.

“God, your accent is so good. Mine is just crap, it always has been. I never had trouble with learning words, but my teachers always hated my pronunciation.” Unrolls his hat and wrings it the other way, leaning his head against the window, watching chain restaurant after chain restaurant pass. “I loved being back in Montreal, or - I thought I did. The food was great. Weather too. But everything else . . . I mean, it’s been about two years, I skype my parents a lot but it’s not the same. They’re older and they’re more closed-minded than they used to be and all they want to know is when I’m going to grow up. Come home.  _ Tawaquf ean altakasul _ .”

“Is that what they said?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of like, stop being lazy.”

Kevin stares at the side of Sami’s head for a long moment. “They do know you essentially have two jobs? And are running a charity?”

Sami shrugs. “They’re proud of my SAMS work, but they think the coffeeshop is childish. I have a bachelor’s in education and they were expecting a teacher, if not a professor. They spent the whole week criticizing everything from how I dress to my using English to why I’m not settled down with a nice girl.”

Shit, this is going to be the part where Sami tells him he’s met a new girl. That he’s got an arranged marriage, they do that in Islam, right? Or is that India? Either way, Kevin knows this is going to end in Sami essentially telling him he doesn’t have a chance in hell.

He’s still talking, though, staring out the window.  “I still don’t have the heart to explain oh, hey, I like both guys and girls and I just broke up with my boyfriend, that’s why I’ve been living in those punk tees and jeans you hate, no I’m not going to become a big-shot lawyer like Tariq or have a wife and six kids like Amin even if I were straight.”

Kevin promises he’s going to be understanding. Gracious.

“He’s a fucking idiot.” Whoops. Oh well, he refuses to apologize, looking over at Sami in the passenger seat. “Not your brothers, who are presumably nice guys. Whoever your ex is. I mean, I’m not fond of your parents for shitting on your entire life, but I get it. That’s what parents do. But your ex presumably had a working fucking brain when he dumped you.”

Sami holds his hands up. “I’m not sure if you’re insulting me or giving me way too much credit, but I’m not the wronged party here. Matt’s a good guy, and I was the idiot who used to do things like forget to invite him places or take off biking with my buddies and not even text him. He tried to make it work, but I - I did so much stupid shit, I’ve spent the past week rehashing it in my head.”

Kevin bites his tongue, because he really will go off on Sami's ex again (who gets mad over their boyfriend having other friends?). And okay, he hasn't really dated since he broke up with Eddie over moving to Orlando, but those sound like perfectly honest mistakes.

“Do you like Vietnamese?”

“What?” Sami blinks at him. “Wait, you'd never had ramen but you like Vietnamese?”

“Yeah. Do you like it?”

“Of course! But it's so hard to find vegan pho-"

“Should've asked Jimmy,” Kevin says as he takes the turn into the lot for Saigon 75. “He pretty much hijacked me into a road trip here a couple months ago.”

“Jimmy?” Sami raises an eyebrow. “Jimmy voluntarily came out near Disney and ate vegetables?”

“There may have been a girl involved. Did you ever meet Scarlett?”

“I have heard some stories and some phone sex I really wish I hadn't.”

Kevin snickers, pulls into a spot. “Well, she bartends next door-" points at the little hipster dive bar, “And she's vegan. You'd get along. Just know that she's perkier than Bayley and hates me.”

“What? How could she hate you?”

“I'm a philistine with no fashion sense or appreciation of culture,” he recites. “Also, I hate drinking and I don't watch anything but hockey and wrestling.”

“Pfft, she sounds boring,” Sami says, and his smile is sweet and fond.

***

Sami inhales an entire bowl of pho, needles Kevin into stopping for ice cream, and spends the entire rest of the drive holding forth on why Kevin's preference for cookies and cream is stupid and wrong. Kevin finds it charming, which is probably a sign of insanity.

They’re walking back to Sami’s apartment from the ice cream place - around the corner, they know Sami and his order of vegan caramelized banana on sight - and Kevin kind of can’t keep his eyes off Sami. He walks along the curb, turns and walks backward, vaults over bus stop benches in surprisingly graceful spurts, but the whole time, he looks withdrawn. Sad. 

Sami should never look sad.

Kevin wants to kiss Sami so badly, but he'd probably end up as just a rebound. He still wants it, can't stop thinking about Sami’s mouth, his hands with those long fingers, he wouldn't really mind being the rebound if he got to touch Sami.

(He would mind. He would. You don't keep your rebound dude, and Kevin doesn't really do casual.)

“How did you end up here?” Sami asks, out of the blue.

“Like, existentially?” Kevin runs his fingers through his hair. “Or biologically, which, buddy if you don’t know how the birds and the bees work-”

“God, you’re an asshole.”

“You’re just figuring this out?”

He tries to make it light, joking, but there’s still a sinking feeling in his stomach. He’s fucked it up, he always fucks it up with people, because he’s a sarcastic jerk and he rarely turns it off, and Sami’s going to tell him off. 

“It’s starting to dawn on me, yeah. I mean, here. In Florida. Not in Montreal-”

“I’m actually from Marieville, it’s not the same thing.”

Sami shoves him. It’s friendly and easy and Kevin shouldn’t find it incredibly cute. He should also not shove Sami back, but he does, shoulder-checks him so he stumbles onto the grass of somebody’s front lawn.

“Yeah, okay, farmboy,” Sami says. “Canada in general. Question still stands.”

And there are a dozen ways he could answer. Could tell Sami one of the white lies he uses on a weekly basis, talk about how there weren’t any options for veterinary medicine in Montreal, how he wanted to rip himself out of his comfort zone, how he wanted to prove everyone wrong when they said he wouldn’t hack it...

“I left because I saw my classmates doing the same thing their parents did. The same thing their grandparents did. My best friend from high school - his parents owned an auto shop. He never even considered college. Guy was an insanely good baker, he could make anything, croissants, cookies, layer cakes, but the fucking  _ day  _ after graduation, he was already up to his elbows in oil changes. Couldn’t afford pastry school.”

It still makes him angry, biting into a sugar cookie from Panera or something, and knowing Benji’s were so much better. He’d driven past the auto shop on his last visit home and seen a little boy with Benji’s blonde curls playing hide-and-seek in one of the junked cars, and gotten that jolt of “oh, he’s got kids now”.

“My parents are fucking awesome, don’t get me wrong,” he continues. “I’d be proud to own a shop like my dad, or be a nurse like my mom, but I’ve always wanted more for myself. I want to be the one they brag about - sure, my brother’s got a wife and kids, but I went to med school.”

Sami’s leaning against the faux-brick of his apartment building, and he’s got a wistful little smile on his face. “My parents would tell me to be more like you. Be a doctor. Make money, do something for others if you can.”

Kevin shrugs. “My parents would tell me that you’ve got the better career path. Do what you love. Take your passion and build something lasting.”

“Would you go back?”

“To Montreal?” 

“Yeah. Fresh air, free healthcare…”

“The winters are murder.”

“They’re not that-”

“I swear if you finish that sentence, I will tie you to a chair and make you watch  _ Mon oncle Antoine _ until your eyes bleed. Canada is fucking cold. And horrifyingly racist.”

Sami bursts into laughter, holding onto the brick for support. He tries to start a few sentences, but keeps giggling, his nose scrunching every time. It’d be adorable if it weren’t also irritating.

“Kevin, I’m - like, you know I’m Muslim, right? Also, of all the weird surrealist Quebecois cinema, you went with  _ Mon oncle Antoine _ instead of  _ Les Affames _ ? The racist political undertones are right there.”

“Because zombie movies give me the creeps. My point stands, our homeland is a freezing wasteland that we have escaped to rent property near chlorinated pools and get in debt up to our eyeballs.”

“Okay, we’re gonna watch Shaun of the Dead one day-”

“I’ve seen Shaun of the Dead, Sami, I hate zombies, not comedy.”

He leans in, pushes into Kevin’s personal space, pushes against Kevin’s chest with his index finger. “28 Days Later, then. Some quality horror, you can’t write video games and not have a good background in horror. What if they ask you to work on Resident Evil or Silent Hill?” Kevin tries to protest - those franchises are up to their ears in writers, they don’t need somebody like him - but Sami’s still talking. “Listen, I’m working all weekend to make up shifts, I’m off Wednesday night. Movie marathon, okay?”

For Sami, he will apparently endure horror movies, because he says yes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haraam = forbidden  
> pouvez-vous me dire où se trouve la ligne d'enregistrement? = can you tell me where the line for baggage check is?  
> Tu me parais bien = you sound fine to me  
> Tawaquf ean altakasul = do not be lazy


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kevin trains a new co-op student, unwittingly steals Bayley's dinner, and has a fashion emergency.

It’s co-op shadowing week at work, which means annoying little grad students and volunteer types getting underfoot and Snapchatting literally everything. Winter Hill does this twice a year, and Kevin is certain he wasn’t this fucking stupid when he was doing his residencies.

There are three of them, all girls, but also all complete idiots. One decided to leave the door to the reptile room open and freaked out when Johnny made her help collect all the snakes. Another spent an hour spinning around in Candice’s chair, then fainted while observing Steve and Nattie doing a biopsy. Kevin’s idiot of the week is a girl named Sarah who texts all day, plays with her white girl dreadlocked hair constantly, and answers every question with “I dunno”.

(Look, he would be fine if she were harmless, but it’s only Tuesday morning and she’s agitated an already-frightened dog and now he’s got six stitches on his hand from a bite.)

So her continuing to be a giant pain in the ass - seriously, she doesn’t know what an autoclave is? - is already working his last nerve, and going most of the day without eating has worn his patience to nonexistence. Of course this is when Mr. Rotundo comes in with his pug, who is working on a case of heat exhaustion after being out in the sun too long.

The asshole refuses to acknowledge that Bo is panting, his eyes are glazed over, and he’s swaying on his feet. Kevin would bet every cent of his salary that the owner had left him in a hot car, but he can’t outright say it, or accuse Mr. Rotundo of anything. The owner seems to think he’s just picking up some preventive flea medication, and Kevin’s overreacting.

“You vet practices, you’re so greedy,” the man raves, while Bo blinks slow and lethargic up at them. “All you want is money. Just give me the flea meds, they’re paid for.”

“Sir, I can’t do that. Your dog is experiencing heat exhaustion.”

“It’s barely over 85 degrees out, he’ll be fine.”

“He won’t. He’s exhibiting a number of signs of heat exhaustion, not to mention that as a brachycephalic breed, he has difficulty breathing even in cool temperatures.”

Rotundo starts sputtering profanities - Kevin’s a greedy bastard, a stupid son of a bitch who isn’t a real doctor, he wants to talk to Dr. Corino fucking now, etc - and meanwhile, every second they argue, Bo risks shock, dehydration, and kidney failure. Oh well, Kevin hasn’t risked a lawsuit in a few weeks, so he picks up the swaying, panting little dog, and glares at Mr. Rotundo.

“Yeah, okay, fine. I don’t know anything and I’m just after money. You can bitch at me all you want, but your dog’s going into shock and I need to treat him. If you have a problem with that, you can sue us. We have a pretty good legal team, and you’ve already signed our standard treatment authorization form. But you can try to come after me, it’ll be fun. You can add onto my several hundred thousand dollars of student loan debt. Please take a seat while I make sure Bo doesn’t die of heat exhaustion.”

He leaves the still-sputtering client at the desk with Candice, and rushes Bo back to one of the bathing rooms. He’s put Bo into the sink - get his temperature down, check for airway blockages, head elevated, massage the legs - and is murmuring to the poor little guy when someone waves a thermometer in front of his face.

“Body temp should be under 103, right Doc?” Sarah says.

He blinks, then grabs the thermometer. “Yeah. Suppose you aren’t completely useless.”

“I’m not,” she retorts. “I just want to be here about as much as you want me here.”

Bo’s temperature is 102, and Kevin relaxes, lets Bo just chill out in the half-filled tub while he dries off his hands and arms and looks over at Sarah. “Where would you rather be?”

She actually gives him a small, wistful smile. “A farm. Like my daddy’s. Horses, cows, chickens, pigs, even a possum or two. Gimme a calf birth or a castration any day over some stuck up rich prick like that.”

“Why isn’t Miami-Dade or UF beating down your door? They freaking love large animal vet students.”

“They’ll give me money? I don’t wanna be in the kinda debt you’re in.”

Kevin laughs. “A girl who grew up on a farm and has experience with equine castration? Easiest scholarship money ever. Call up UF and ask for the dean, I did my farm rotation with Dr. Zimmel and she’d love you.”

“You get to do farm rotations? Out of state? Do you get anesthesiology experience? Have you ever tranq’d a horse?”

Sarah turns out to not be as much of an idiot as he previously thought.

***

Busaiku is the easiest place to get food, even if none of it’s meat, because he needs the caffeine if he’s going to finish the co-op evaluations by tomorrow. He was considering finishing them at the office, but Steve had pushed him out the door with a well-meaning “eat and go home, Kevin, I’m not giving you an IV if you pass out”.

He must really look out of it, because when he gets to the coffeeshop, Sami jumps up from the table he’s sitting at and beelines over.

“Kev, are you okay?” Sami asks, and Kevin blinks. Has to register the words. “Kevin, seriously, what’s going on?”

Bayley leans over the counter. “Shit, is he still in scrubs? Sit him down, Sami. I’ll be right out with some food and water. Yeah, I know, I know, no weird-ass quinoa or tofu.”

He appreciates her remembering. It’s not that he’s against healthy food, it’s just that quinoa tastes bad no matter what you do to it, and he doesn’t like the texture of tofu. Sami is yammering something at him as he guides Kevin over to the table - oh, it’s one of the comfy booths, he likes those - and presses a glass of cucumber and coconut water into his hands.

“...forget the stuff in it, you need water before you need caffeine. Seriously, how long have you been on your feet? Your legs are shaking.”

“I started at 8 like I usually do,” Kevin says.

“Okay, so 8 to what, 12 or 1 for lunch?”

“Didn’t have lunch. No time. So basically since 8. You know coconut tastes awful, right?”

Sami lets out a fairly long string of Arabic. “Drink the water. I can’t believe you haven’t eaten or sat down in like, thirteen hours.”

Bayley comes out from the kitchen with a tray, and it smells amazing. She slides it onto the table and sits down next to Sami. “Oh, you should talk. You fast for an entire month straight,” she says to him, handing Kevin a fork and starting to unload the tray. “Okay, so the white bowl is a Burmese vegetable curry with rice, which you’ve had before, and there’s a side of seitan with peanut sauce. Pretend it’s chicken. The square plate has one of Brie’s pastelitos and half a turkey pesto panini - it wasn’t cooked here, Sami, I made it for myself at home and just heated it in the oven - and I will make you coffee once you eat.”

“I don’t wanna take your dinner-”

“Eat,” she says forcefully, and he swears she was a grandmother in her last life. “I’ll get a poke bowl from next door, I’ll be fine. You need actual food in your stomach. Sami, I’ve got the inventory and I’ll yank Xavier off his Switch to man the front. Make sure Kevin eats?”

“Yeah, of course.”

They watch her stalk to the kitchen. 

“She’s terrifying,” Kevin says, picking up the fork and digging in. “Does Daniel like, scan for brains and intense parental instincts when he hires staff? Cause between you and her-”

“Less talking, more eating,” Sami responds, and swipes one of the pieces of seitan for himself.

The food is pretty good, though he could honestly be eating cardboard right now just to put something in his stomach. Even better is Sami casually yammering at him about the new album he bought, how awful the wrap place up the street is, Finn’s latest Lego project. Putting aside the fact that it's nice to know the walking Greek god is a secret nerd like everyone else, Kevin also appreciates that Sami isn't making him talk about work.

“...you’ll be there, right?”

“Huh?”

“The adoption event next weekend. Aren't you guys partnering with Brie and Nikki?”

Oh. That. “It's kind of Candice and Nattie’s thing. I'll be there because Candice will murder me if I miss it, but it's usually a whole night of answering dumb questions in a suit.”

“So answer dumb questions in a suit and then we’ll sneak into Animal Kingdom to do the safari.”

Kevin very nearly chokes on his curry; he has only been dreaming about doing the Animal Kingdom safari again ever since his parents took him for a graduation gift two years ago. It’s not like it’s expensive, he just kind of works all the time. Plus, he wants someone to go with - Seth has flat-out refused to do anything animal-related after the time at the Tampa Zoo, he’s not that chill with Dean and Renee, Claudio will go with him but Kevin has to go to Crossfit in return and he hates Crossfit.

“I mean, we don’t have to-” Sami’s saying, and Kevin drinks more of the awful coconut water so he doesn’t actually choke.

“I love the safari. I, uh, I really love animals.”

“Yeah, you dork, you’re a vet.”

Kevin doesn’t bother explaining it to Sami - he loves animals and if they’re going on the safari, he’s just going to have to deal with Kevin freaking out over everything. It probably makes them even for the Full Impact Pro show, not to mention the horror marathon Sami’s still got planned.

***

It’s 7:54 pm on Wednesday night, and Kevin has passed full-blown panic. His brain feels like a giant blue screen, flashing things like “ERROR” and “RESTART” and “HORROR MARATHON AT SAMI’S PLACE”.

In all the craziness of the week, it hadn’t actually occurred to him until he drove home from work, ate some takeout Mexican, and checked his phone several hundred times to make sure Sami’s message of “ _we’re still on for zombie movies, right? Come over at 8, bring soda or something since you hate my LaCroix ;)_ ” hasn’t changed, that oh, yes. He is going to Sami’s apartment. Where Sami lives. And sleeps. 

And does other things. 

Oh god, he can’t wear a too-small Transformers shirt and cargo shorts to Sami’s, right? He digs through his closet, pulls on jeans and a button-down shirt - no, wait, that’s wrong too. Who wears a button-down to hang out? What if he gets cold, maybe a sweater would . . . no, it’s Florida. In June. He’ll roast.

His phone starts trilling, Jimmy’s photo lighting up the screen, and Kevin picks up with a relieved sigh.

“I need you to tell me what to wear,” he says, not bothering to say hello.

Jimmy laughs. “Kinky, babe. Didn’t know you had it in you. Why do you need sartorial advice from yours truly?”

“If you fucking breathe a word of this-”

“Have I ever told anyone anything that I’ve sworn not to? I have refrained from telling Sara that you spilled coffee on her favorite blanket. I have not mentioned to Seth that you knew his dog ate poop right before he got kisses. I have never once told Dean about that thing with the hula hoop. I’m hurt that you’d even suggest it...”

As Jimmy rants, Kevin rifles through his closet, discarding shirt after shirt. Guns & Roses? Hole in the underarm. Habs jersey? Too hot. Plain blue or black? Boring, he’s so boring.

“So what is it?” Jimmy finally asks.

“I might have - kinda - I dunno - I’m hanging out with someone-”

“DID YOU FINALLY MAKE OUT WITH SAMI?” 

“WHAT?” Kevin yelps, “NO!”

“Are you going on another date?” 

“No, we’re, we’re just hanging out, we’re watching horror movies tonight-”

“Oh Kevin, you dope. That is a _date_. That couldn’t be more of a date. You’ve been on a Sami date already, you went to my show, that’s the most datey thing you two could do, you fucking nerds.”

“It’s not a date, fuckface. Tell me what the fuck to wear so I don’t look like such a slob.”

Jimmy sighs loudly and obnoxiously. “You are a river in Egypt, my friend. Is your Trips shirt clean?”

“Black Evolution or grey vintage?”

“Vintage. It makes your biceps look edible, it’s soft as hell, and it’ll drive Sami crazy because you like the heels. Then maybe you’ll make out.”

“We’re not gonna make out.”

“Kevin, even the security dudes at Full Impact think you’re dating. They saw you together for a grand total of 3 hours. I have known you both for several years, and I would have tried to matchmake immediately if Sami hadn’t been with Matt. This is my chance, man, do not hurt me by wussing out. What time are you going to Sami’s?”

“Um, 8?”

“... you’re so lucky that Sami time does not work like normal time. Put on the shirt, keep whatever jeans you’re wearing, don’t gel your hair, and wear sneakers, not sandals.” Jimmy pauses, then raises an eyebrow over the FaceTime window. “Put the phone down, c’mon. Go change, grab your keys and wallet and shit, and go watch some movies with the dude you’ve been crushing on.”

He does, indeed, hang up and put sneakers on. Not gelling his hair feels weird, but okay, Jimmy generally knows what he’s talking about when it comes to hair, his own aside. The drive over takes only five minutes - Sami lives on the other side of Colonial Drive in Winter Park - and his apartment is fairly normal. Grey stone and brick building with the fake-palm facade that every place in Florida has, and he rings the bell for 502 with a clammy, shaking hand.

They’re just hanging out. Watching zombie movies.

It’s not a date.


End file.
